My Fellow Citizens

I shot this on a southbound #27 Upper James city bus, as it passed the neighbourhood of Bonnington, shortly after making “One Look”. Public transit can be a fruitful place to make street portraits.

I’d love to know what was concerning this man just then. I think about the expressions my face must unconsciously make when contemplating the experiences, hopes, dreams, plans and fears of my life.

I grew up reading and making action comic books, and fell in love with the high contrast film noir look to ink drawing. I push this aesthetic in much of my B/W street photography.

I was really fortunate here as the intense sunlight was ever so fleeting for me to switch lenses and bracket a few shots of passengers where I could exploit the natural rim lighting.

I do wish I had a bit more light fall on his lips; just enough to outline the contour of the foreground subject’s face more in relation to the profile in the background. I’m not totally disappointed regardless. The large deep shadow over his mouth helps to keep attention returning to that marvelously furrowed brow.

I like the bright reflection off of the forehead of the woman in the background. It balances the image by drawing a subtle amount of attention from the man’s face to her silhouette.

6 thoughts on “My Fellow Citizens”

Thank you so much. The light caught him so well. I don’t think the opportunity and situation could naturally duplicate itself for me to be able to make a similar shot again. This is a unique one for me.

Thank you. I’d have to set up studio lighting to reproduce the lighting but I could never get the naturalness of the moment to go with it, and everything was so fleeting. I really had to work fast to capture this.